This tool provides a series of research-based questions to consider when you’re asking students to write evidence-based explanations. The categories and specific questions are adapted from Kang, Thompson, & Windschitl (2014) and organized according to what has the greatest impact on the quality of student work. By supporting students in writing more extensive explanations, you will deepen their reasoning about the phenomenon being explored and gain insight into the ways they are thinking.
Scaffolding Students’ Written Explanations
Ambitious Teaching—An overview
In this video we illustrate what Ambitious Teaching looks like in classrooms ranging from high school to kindergarten. The practices were developed through collaborations between teachers and researchers, and they are continually evolving as we learn more about how they work with young learners. There are several themes that you’ll see in all examples, such as a focus on puzzling and complex phenomena, opportunities to make sense through talk, making thinking visible, attending to who is participating, using various forms of scaffolding and tools, and much more.
This site is primarily funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through Award #1907471 and #1315995